


Red Handed

by Endangered_Slug



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Storybrooke AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:53:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endangered_Slug/pseuds/Endangered_Slug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repeatinglitanies prompted: Has anyone written a fic where Belle is town vandal/graffiti artist and Mr Gold is not only the town landlord/pawnbroker but also the lawyer who always gets her out of trouble.</p><p>Or; Belle has a problem with impulsiveness and it sometimes gets her into trouble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Belle was dimly aware of the footsteps approaching behind her as she crouched down on the gravel outside Gold's Pawnshop, but it wasn't until the too-bright beam of light was in her face that it registered with her that something was wrong.

 

“ _Belle French_?” Sheriff Graham asked incredulously, his face hidden in the dark shadows behind his flashlight. “Is that _you_?”

 

She held a hand up to block the light from her eyes. “Hi, Sheriff.”

 

“What are you doing here?”

 

I was—” She looked at the roses she was painting on the side of the building. They gleamed wettly in the halo of light from the flashlight being aimed at her. Her shadow loomed over the artwork. “Painting. Something.”

 

“On Mr. _Gold's_ shop? Do you have any sense at _all_?”

 

“I thought it would look pretty,” she said, tearfully. Was the sheriff blind?

 

The Sheriff dropped the light so it wasn't shining in her eyes any more and sighed. “You picked the wrong building to deface, Belle.”

 

“But...” she gestured to her artwork. “It's not defaced. It's beautiful.”

 

“Do you have permission?”

 

“No, sir,” she said in a small voice. It didn't even occur to her to ask. She just saw the blank wall — the same wall she'd seen nearly every day for five years — and the urge to paint something overtook her. Her fingers tingled to create something beautiful on that wall specifically. She was able to wait until her dad was passed out from drinking away the days' wages to come out with her brushes but once she got started her surroundings faded away from her conscious. It was just her and her brushes and paints and the roses she was bringing to life along the side of the pawnshop... until the Sheriff shone his light into her face.

 

“That's _defacement_ , Belle.” The sheriff cursed under his breath. “I know you're smarter than this, girl. Did someone put you up to it?”

 

Belle shook her head, confused. No one put her up to it. She just wanted to do something nice for someone. Who didn't like _art_? She curled up and put the side of her head on her knees looking at what she created. She tuned Sheriff Graham out. It was difficult to listen to him with the the way her heart was pumping and the blood pounding in her ears. The whole thing was a big mistake. He was talking on the phone with someone, probably her dad, who would not like being woken up this late at night. She heard the words “graffiti” and “misdemeanor” and she just scrunched herself into as small a ball as possible. Then the sheriff was talking to her again, but she decided that her best course of action was to just keep silent and wait for her him to arrest her.

 

“...have to take you in.”

 

“... your father to come pick you up.”

 

“... lawyer?”

 

The smooth sound of an expensive car well taken care of pierced through the fog she was in and she lifted her head in time to see Mr. Gold, decked out in a suit even though it was gone midnight, emerge from the driver's side. He slammed the door hard, not even minding the late hour, and his cane punctuated every angry step he took.

 

“Damn,” she whispered to herself. She had hoped to surprise him. She had hoped he would like it, but by the look of his face, pinched and black with fury, she realized that she'd messed up completely.

 

The anger had faded into disbelief when Mr. Gold saw who the culprit was and he spoke quietly with Sheriff Graham while Belle waited for something to happen. She _hated_ this. She hated having two men decide her fate for her, but the sheriff was right, she had broken the law and she was in the wrong. Can't go back and change things now.

 

Mr. Gold knelt in front of her, one hand on his cane for balance and the other whipping out his pocket square and shaking it out. He gave it to her without a word.

 

Her hand shook as she took it from him, the weight of her crime overtaking her suddenly when she realized that she'd been crying.

 

"Why did you do it, Belle?" he asked, quietly, concern written in his brown eyes.

 

She gave him a wobbly smile that felt wrong as if her face was made out of rubber and it was coming loose at the edges. "I thought you'd like it. I'm sorry." She dabbed at her eyes with his silk handkerchief and noticed that she had paint all over her hands and probably her face, too. Seeing the beautiful silk destroyed by the paint made her feel even worse than before.

 

One more glance at the roses and that feeling turned to nausea. Her hand had slipped when Sheriff Graham startled her and now there was a fat, ugly drip running down the length of the building. She sniffed, her nose becoming one big drip just like the one she left of the wall of Mr. Gold's shop.

 

"I don't think I'll be pressing charges, sheriff," Mr. Gold said without warning, standing up with some difficulty.

 

Belle looked up slowly, surprised.

 

The sheriff's jaw actually dropped and he blinked in shock. "You _won't_? That's... that's good! I know Belle's sorry and she's a good girl, really."

 

Mr. Gold was carefully eyed the mural she'd painted and then looked back down at Belle. He smiled softly at her, his face losing its harsh lines and pinched look, becoming warmth and softness.

 

Belle thought he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen.

 

"I'm sure she is," he said. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No harm done."

 

Graham was obviously at a loss now that the town's most feared man had decided not to prosecute, but he wasn't going to argue with him. Not when it was Belle French they were discussing. Belle French who had never done harm to anyone and had a scholarship waiting for her next year.

 

"That's great! I'll just wait until her father comes to get her. You can go home now if you want," the sheriff said.

 

Belle flinched at the mention of her father. He would not be happy to be dragged off the couch at this time of night.

 

Me. Gold had seen it though and didn't budge an inch.

 

"Are you going to be in trouble with your father?" he asked in a low voice and Belle understood "trouble" to mean "beatings" and she shook her head.

 

No, as bad as things got at home, her dad had never laid a hand on her. Most days he forgot she even existed so the idea of him hitting her was almost laughable

 

Almost.

 

"Then I'll say goodnight, Sheriff," he said still watching Belle. "I have an early morning tomorrow. I have to arrange for painters."

 

Belle felt the tears well up again and dropped her head back on her knees so she couldn't see him walk away.

 

To her surprise, her dad had dropped the hammer down. He did not appreciate having to pick up his daughter at twelve-thirty in the morning from the custody of the sheriff and he told her exactly what he thought of her behavior and laid down some new rules. She had to go straight home or her dad's shop immediately after school; no phone calls were permitted, and no television allowed, which Belle hadn't minded anyway. She'd rather read or draw, but her dad had flipped her room upside down searching for her art supplies and confiscating them until she was off restriction. That didn't deter Belle. She had learned long ago that there were other ways to create art than with pencil and paper and for two days, when she wasn't reading or doing her homework, she was on her shabby bed weaving scraps of fabric over a homemade framework compiled out of wire hangers. She'd have preferred to use a lighter wire and some fishing line but she had to be satisfied with what she had on hand. When she was done she would dip it in liquid starch so it would keep its shape and hang it in front of her window to let the light shine through.

 

Her clothes were a mess on the floor of her closet but she had an iron and, apparently, plenty of time.

 

Her dad had paid strict attention to her for four days before he got bored with keeping an eye on his daughter. He got stone drunk and passed out on the couch directly after dinner. Once she'd cleaned up the dishes, Belle took the opportunity to slip out the window and scoot down the porch roof as quietly as she could. She'd lifted the supplies from her father's hiding place the day before and hid them in an empty tampon box knowing her dad would never look in it. She didn't need a lot. Just her brushes and some paint with which to finish the mural.

 

It had dried beautifully, she thought once she stood in front of it again, except for that horrible drip when her hand slipped, but she could easily fix that incorporating it into the mural as a whole. She rather liked the idea of using her mistakes to enhance her art. The idea overtook her and soon she was lost in her creation. Mistakes were made every day but that didn't mean they had to hold you back. They could be used as a springboard into something better, she thought as she turned a drop into a leaf, a splatter into a cluster of thorns—

 

“It seems you haven't learned one thing, Miss French,” Mr. Gold said from behind her, his voice deep and rich and startling her out of her reverie.

 

She froze, holding her brush away from the wall lest she make another drip. Damn! How stupid could she be? She turned around slowly, a guilty expression on her face, hands smeared red with paint.

 

“What do you think you're doing?” He said with no little exasperation.

 

“I wasn't finished,” she explained, weakly.

 

Mr. Gold looked at the mural for a very long while, the minutes ticking by one by one while he considered what to do. He smiled softly when he looked back at her. "Okay," he said, finally. “Finish it.”

 

Belle beamed up at him. She knew he would be one to appreciate what she was trying to say with her art.

 

“Don't forget to sign your name,” he said.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The jail was cold and devoid of anything interesting to look at. The posters tacked up on the wall left much to be desired and after Belle had read them (twice) she'd lain down on the stiff cot and the scratchy blanket that felt like it was made from recycled plastic bottles and smelled like it had been used for a urinal. There were fourteen cracks running in the ceiling and one rusty looking water stain which was spreading outward from the corner. Someone should probably repair it before it caused any real damage, she thought. Or, maybe she could push her way through it and escape through the ceiling. If she tied hard enough, fast enough maybe she could climb her way into the clouds and leave the earth behind.

 

There was no privacy whatsoever in her cell. She knew that objectively, but the harsh reality of it made her want to curl up into a tight ball and sleep until someone bailed her out. Except she couldn't sleep when the lights were on, harsh and cold and that one bulb was flickering with an incessant buzzing that drove into her ear like a mosquito. And she knew the Sheriff was watching her.

 

Sheriff Graham had become more and more impatient with her after her first official run in with him outside Mr. Gold's pawn shop a year and a half ago. She'd been caught a few times afterwards but had always managed to either talk her way out of trouble or the building owners took pity on her and didn't press charges. Her art painted over with wide, ugly swathes of paint that never matched the worn exteriors completely. They reminded her of surgical scars.

 

She never hit the same place twice. She figured that if they didn't like her gifts the first time, they certainly would take umbrage the second. And press charges. Mr. Gold had stayed by her side with each infraction acting as her counsel and making sure she stayed out of custody. He negotiated reparation terms that were fair usually consisting her paying for damages herself and then painting over the damage itself. It helped that he was the primary landlord in town and these were technically his buildings, but he also had an obligation to his tenants. Once he explained it to her she understood and invested in a good paint roller and rod.

 

Her scholarship was lost after the fourth offense. Someone with authority had kindly informed the school of her trouble with the law and they rescinded their acceptance. She didn't know if that was legal or not and she meant to consult with Mr. Gold about it, but she was ashamed and too embarrassed to approach him about it. Besides, did she want to go to a school that didn't want her? Belle thought not.

 

So she'd graduated with honors and stayed in her small town feeling stagnant and needing some sort of release.

 

The pawn shop was the only building in town she had free access to and it was rapidly running out of space. There was no plan whenever she showed up with her paints. The bower of roses had trailed into stars, which had faded into the ocean which crashed into a forest. The only real space left to paint was the shop's front facade and she knew to leave that alone.

 

Her peculiarity had garnered her quite a reputation in town. Good girl Belle, sweet, dreamy, head-in-the-clouds, not-all-there Belle had become troubled Belle. Delinquent, problematic, destined for jail and living on the streets Belle. She didn't understand the change in people's behavior when they interacted with her. They treated her like a criminal and, objectively, she knew what she did was illegal, but it also didn't really harm anyone. She just liked working on a large scale and the only canvases she could find happened to be buildings. If they could find her a canvas forty feet tall and a place to paint it in she would be glad to accept.

 

There were several youths in town who liked to spray paint graffiti. Tagging, the police called it. Belle could tell early on who it was and what their distinctive tags were, but the mayor laid every single imperfection of her picture perfect town at Belle's doorstep. It was ridiculous. None of it even looked like her work and she didn't appreciate being brought in to question whenever Peter or Felix defaced the stop signs on Main Street. “Lost Boyz” for goodness sake. Could they be more obvious?

 

She discovered through trial and error that she didn't like working with spray paint. It was messy, imprecise for her needs, it smelled and left tell-tale traces on her hands that were difficult to scrub off. She had her established medium and style and was thinking of bringing up harassment charges, but even she knew that would be an exercise in futility.

 

Her trouble this day was that she hit the elementary school and the mayor was livid. Public property should have been a no go with her, but it was so plain and just begging for something cheerful for the students to look at. Belle didn't see the harm, but Sheriff Graham did and had her cuffed and in the back of his squad car faster than she could think. There was no talking her way out of it now. No way merely painting over the offending art would be enough. She only hoped Mr. Gold would be able to help her negotiate a short sentence.

 

Soon, the man himself strode in. His cane punctuating every step with a sharp clack despite its rubberized tip. She knew everyone in town felt a thrill of terror at that sound but to Belle it was reassuring. She knew that whatever the problem was, Mr. Gold would help her take care of it.

 

He came to stand in front of her cell and she just sat there waiting for him to begin.

 

“I was hoping I would never see you in here, Belle,” he said at last, his voice low and rough and everything she loved if it didn't sound so sad.

 

She merely nodded her head contritely.

 

“The mayor isn't happy. The school board isn't happy. The janitor isn't happy. The only ones who are happy, at the moment, are the kids.” He gave her a half smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.

 

“Well, that's what I wanted,” she said looking down at her hands in her lap. There was blue paint embedded in her cuticles.

 

“How old are you, Belle?” he asked wearily.

 

She frowned at him. He knew very well how old she was. He even gave her a birthday present – one of the few people who remembered at all that it _was_ her birthday and that she might like something nice to remember it by.

 

“I'm twenty.”

 

He sighed and sat down on the arm of the visitor's chair. “Belle, look at me.” He waited until her eyes met his. “You can't keep doing this. One of these days you are going to get into real trouble and I won't be able to help you. You are an adult now and can be tried as one. It's still a misdemeanor, but they add up and eventually you will go to jail. You're the smartest person in this town. I don't want to see you behind bars.”

 

She felt fat tears well up and roll down her cheeks and knew by the look on his face that he was in agony just watching her.

 

“I don't know what to do, Mr. Gold,” she whispered, hoarsely. “No one in town will hire me. I don't have any money to leave. I'm _stuck_.” She shoved her hand between her knees and pressed them all together, rocking back and forth.

 

He was quiet for a while, watching the door for the sheriff while she composed herself. “I made a deal with the D.A. You'll have some community service time, quite a bit of it in fact, and you'll have to report to Sheriff Graham once a week. You'll have to submit to a drug test every week and prove that you can stay out of trouble. That means no more public works without permission. At all.”

 

Belle nodded her head glumly. She knew it was a best case scenario. Knew that it could have been a lot worse if the mayor had gotten her way, but it was still humiliating. “How long?”

 

“Twenty hours community service and six months probation.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He sighed deeply and reached for his cane. “Let's get you out of here and back home.”

 

“Dad kicked me out,” she said so quietly that she didn't think he heard her until she looked up at his face which was black with fury.

 

“When?” There was that roughness again and something inside her wept.

 

“Tuesday.”

 

It was Friday.

 

He sat back down, heavily. “Where have you been living for three days?” This was his Scary Voice. His Landlord Voice. The voice people received when they owed him money, but had come up short when it came time to pay. It was the first time Belle had heard it and she ached because it was directed at her.

 

No, not at her, she realized looking at him closely, at the way his cheek twitched and his teeth seemed to bare as if waiting for the taste of blood from a spouting jugular. He was angry at her father. Well, that was ten times worse because she couldn't protect her father any more. She didn't know if she wanted to.

 

“I stayed with Ariel Tuesday night, then I slept—” She took a large gulp of air, trying not to sob, looking anywhere but his face. His beautiful, awful face. “I slept under the bridge on Wednesday. Thursday night I was put in here.”

 

He nodded his head, collecting himself and Belle sat in awe as she watched the anger leave his face to leave the calm, stoic man she'd always known. “I'll get you out. You can come with me.”

 

Half an hour later she was sitting in front of the pawn shop with all her worldly possessions stuffed in a lumpy garbage bag in her lap. Mr. Gold got out first and made his way to her door, opening it as if she was someone who deserved the consideration.

 

She waited while he unlocked the store, hugging the garbage bag close to her chest. Mr. Gold had swung by the Toll Bridge, going out of his way, to retrieve it for her since she didn't have it when she was pinched by Sheriff Graham.

 

He led her to the back, through the curtain dividing the front from his workshop and she looked wide-eyed at the bounty of objects laid out before her.

 

“I have a cot here you can use until we find something more permanent for you. There's a small bathroom right over there and I can bring in a small refrigerator if you think you'll need it. I'll get a key made so you can come and go freely.”

 

And just then Belle realized exactly how much Mr. Gold trusted her. The knowledge shook her to the core. There was no way on earth she would betray his trust, but he couldn't know that.

 

She dumped her bag onto the bed and sat next to it. He wouldn't look at her but kept his eyes on the shelves to her right and whatever had caught his fancy there. “I know there will be talk and I can't help that. You being thrown in jail and then me bringing you here... it doesn't look good. I'm sorry. But, you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to.”

 

“I can't pay—”

 

He smiled bitterly. “I'll put you to work if it makes you feel better. There's always something that needs to be done around here. We'll figure out a schedule tomorrow. In the meantime, get comfortable and try to get some sleep.”

 

Belle had often wondered why Mr. Gold had bailed her out of trouble so many times but had never had the courage to ask him. Now, with him standing before her, offering her more than she had any right to ask for, she found it.

 

“Why do you help me so much, Mr. Gold? It's not that I'm not grateful. But... I seem to be a walking disaster.”

 

He looked at her finally, not quite smiling at her but his eyes were warm and lit up from within.

 

“You were born for great things, Belle. I can see it. I have confidence that one day you'll take the world by storm and I...” He took a deep breath and then his hoarse voice was back sending shivers to her toes again. “I can't wait for that to happen.”

 

He quietly said goodnight and walked out of the room to let her get some sleep, but Belle did nothing but stare at the ceiling for hours (two spidery cracks and four actual spiders) thinking over what Mr. Gold said.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
